Jan. 8, 2008 - Book of Centuries
Book of Centuries
ANOTHER one of my New Years' Aspirations was to post more pictures on my site. And I've been meaning to share this with you - particularly the homeschool moms who frequent this site.
I home educate using Charlotte Mason's methodology via a site called Ambleside Online. ((Ambleside being the locale in England where Charlotte taught her girls.)) There are quite a few kewl things about this method - first, it's well-rounded, including classical artists, composers, literature, poetry, and the KJV of the Bible. Secondly, it's almost all free - the books are all available either on-line (can be printed or read via PC) or at the library. If you're clever, you can even get the math and grammar lessons free - I use MEP Math (free here) and Scott Foresman Grammer (free here). Third, they PROVIDE a number of schedules for you, and you can modify to your hearts content. Further, there are literally DOZENS of e-mail groups to join for support in case you need ideas (or want to bum links to sources off other moms and save yourself a LOT of time.). Also, Charlotte Mason is very much about getting out and seeing things and learning thru experiences.
One of the things that she endorses is called the Book of Centuries. I know you've all heard me talk about this here, but might not understand what this is. It's a timeline in a book, basically. As your child reads about King Henry VIII or Napoleon, he puts their picture and a caption in the Book of Centuries, in the proper era, and then he can flip thru it and see where everything falls, and know what happened about the same time. The Book of Centuries can be made any way you like... some ladies do index cards instead of a book, some have a schoolroom and make a HUGE timeline around the top of the wall and stick the pictures on that. ((That doesn't travel as well and isn't keep-able and isn't personalized by the child and isn't as hands-on, IMO.)) I chose to comb bind pages with eras at the top.
5000BC thru 1AD are in thousand year periods. 1AD thru 1900AD are in hundred year periods. 1900AD thru the present are in 10 year periods. And of course, I may modify it later, but right now each period has a two-page spread. And the cover looks like this.
We just started our Books this year, so we're not very far yet. But my goal is to find non-twaddly, black and white pictures for us to color and put in our books. ((Twaddle is cartoony, unrealistic stuff. Compare DaVinci's sketches to SpongeBob and you'll understand twaddle vs. non-twaddle.)) BTW, this is NOT easy to do with Biblical eras... coloring pages with bubble drawings abound... there ain't much for nice non-twaddle illustrations. UNLESS... you happen to be me and find an antique hardcover version of Gustav Dore's Biblical Illustrations at an antique store and pick it up four years before you even have children. ((wink!))
We actually started off with the 'Creation Page' I spent a week with the kids just working on this. Each day we did a day of creation, and what happened, and then drew it ourselves. Here's my creation page... and you can see it was just boxes and we did our own drawings inside of them.
Then I started collecting pictures for the stories to follow. Not EVERY story, mind you. I don't have pictures of Sarah laughing at the news of a baby, or Abraham and Lot parting ways, or Noah's drunken mistake, for example. But Adam and Eve's fall, Cain and Abel, Noah's ark, and the major ones are in our Book of Centuries. And we simply added color to the already beautiful pictures. And yes, Isaac's are scribbled on, but he can re-do them later when Aaron's doing thru and doing his classes. The point is to get them to be involved right now, regardless of their skill level.
Here's a sample page of pictures, including the Tower of Babel, Lot's wife (destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah), the Akeda, Rebekah at the well, and Hagar and Ishmael in the desert.
I'm hoping to put together a page on my regular website of the illustrations we use as we go along (not all of them are Dore). I think that might be helpful to other mom's working on their books and looking for non-twaddle illustrations. We shall see what I get to. But there's the general idea, and how I'm implementing it. Just thought I'd share!
